Intracerebral Hemorrhage: The 'Other' Stroke

J Mocco, MD, MS Professor and Vice Chair for Education Director, Cerebrovascular Center Residency Program Director Department of Neurological Surgery Mount Sinai Health System Intracerebral Hemorrhage: The 'Other' Stroke A recent patient of mine, 48-year-old "Joe" (not his real name), was eating with his family at an Italian restaurant. Suddenly, he stood up, cursed, and collapsed. They brought him to the hospital, and he could not talk, move, or do anything we asked him to do. It turned out that Joe had suffered the second-most common, but deadliest, form of stroke: intracerebral hemorrhage. When people hear "stroke," they typically think of the more prevalent type of brain attack, an ischemic stroke, where a clot lodges in an artery, blocking blood flow to the brain and starving it of oxygen. Intracerebral hemorrhage, on the other hand, is spontaneous bleeding in the brain, usually due to chronic high blood pressure or other conditions that weaken the walls of the brain's tiny blood vessels, causing them to rupture. As the blood pools, pressure builds up, compressing nearby brain tissue. Symptoms of Intracerebral Hemorrhage The brain is the "computer" that runs the body, controlling your ability to move, lift your arms, walk, and talk. When the part of your brain that corresponds to one of those functions is injured, either by bleeding or by a clot that starves it of oxygen, then that part stops working, and your body cannot function normally. Both types of strok...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news